Family Secrets of Indonesia Sucide Bomber
Wawan Purwanto, a spokesman for the intelligence agency, said militants were being influenced by tactics in the Middle East, where children and women have been used in attacks.
He said there may also have been a belief that the whole family would enter heaven by carrying out an attack together.
Ansyad Mbai, a former head of Indonesia’s anti-terrorism agency (BNPT), said using a family unit for an attack helped ensure planning was kept secret.
The parents of the families had indoctrinated their children and every Sunday evening made them attend a prayer circle with adults, police said.
Oepriarto’s house is now boarded up and cordoned off with police tape after being searched by bomb squad and forensics teams for two days.
“On the day of the attack, the father and the two male children attended morning prayers at the neighborhood mosque and then came back home briefly. They went out again at around 7 a.m. but I didn’t know where they were going. It turned out to be to the churches,” said the neighbor, Trikusuma.
Still, it appears there were some warning signs.
In the attack on Surabaya’s city police headquarters on Monday, the father who brought his family on motorbikes to blow themselves up had come up on police radar after visiting terror convicts in a nearby jail, according to the community head.
Kukuh Santoso, 47, said that six to eight months ago the father, Tri Murtiono, had visited the convicts in a jail in Porong and after that police had paid a visit to the family.
“Besides that, we had absolutely no idea they were even thinking like this”, said Santoso.
A counter-terrorism source confirmed this account, but declined to elaborate.
- Source : Kanupriya Kapoor
